Radcliffe satisfied to complete course

Paula Radcliffe insisted she would have walked all the way to the marathon finish line if necessary after her quest for an elusive Olympic medal ended once more in pain and tears.

Radcliffe's brave bid faltered after half-way when she was struck by pain in her calves as her disrupted preparations caught up with her.

After sobbing on the shoulder of team-mate Liz Yelling after recording a time of 2:32.38 in cool, drizzly conditions, Radcliffe said: "I would have walked because it was something that was actually okay walking. I haven't made the injury worse."

Radcliffe was forced to stop to try to relieve the pain and there were fears she might pull out as she did in Athens four years ago. But she carried on to finish 23rd in a race which saw Romania's Constantina Tomescu take the gold medal and Britain's Mara Yamauchi run the race of her life to finish sixth.

Catherine Ndereba of Kenya took silver and China's Chunxiu Zhou the bronze while Britain's Yelling courageously finished 26th after falling and cracking a rib.

But just finishing was something of a triumph for Radcliffe, whose career is garnished with World, European and Commonwealth medals but nothing from the Olympics.

"If I felt I was doing some serious damage I would have stopped. It's horrible when you have to drop out, especially when it's the Olympic Games. So many people have worked so hard to get me here.

"In some ways it's almost quicker to keep going because if you stop you're just left out there on your own.

"They couldn't have been better conditions. When I started to struggle I got a lot of traffic and that was annoying. I was getting lots of fumes as well as everything else."

Radcliffe, whose preparations had been disrupted by a stress fracture to her left femur which saw her back in full running only a fortnight ago, stopped running four kilometres from home to stretch against some railings to try to relieve the agony in her calves.